When we sleep with each other, we sleep with images we’ve absorbed and, without knowing it, those our lovers have absorbed as well. Like fast food, images of other people’s orgasms, stripped of context and connection, are available 24 hours a day and consumed alone and on the cheap… When a woman lies down with a man, a light show of images plays over her body without her knowing it: red-satin garter belts, perhaps, or beaver shots or Marilyn Chambers or Monica Lewinsky or the Penthouse Pet of the Month. When a man lies down with a woman, images of imaginary men play over his face without his knowing it–the hero of Tristan and Iseult, perhaps, or a Tammy Wynette song or a romance novel. No wonder we feel split within ourselves and from each other. We expect sexualized romantic love to carry a greater psychological burden than does any other culture on earth while we simultaneously denigrate the sexual. And so we reverberate between sexual obsession and sexual shame.
Katy Butler
